UK's economy helped by prostitutes and drug sales

Britain's economy is doing much better since it started including illegal activities such as prostitution and drug sales in its GDP reports.

The hidden-economy trade, how such activities are called, generate almost 11.9 billion euros per year.

The total is estimated based on how many prostitutes and drug dealers are in the UK and their activities.

Although prostitution is legal in Great Britain, brothels, pimps and sex advertising are not and, therefore, calculating the revenue generated by this kind of industry is complicated.

On the other hand, estimating the total amount of money generated by crack, amphetamine, cannabis, heroine, cocaine and ecstasy sales was easier thanks to government statistics on the number of drug users.

EU rules known as the European System of Accounts specify that illegal activities that are economically productive now have to be included in the country's GDP report.

Austria, Estonia, Finland, Slovenia and Sweden already include such activities and have shown an increased GDP level by as much as five percent. Italy and Great Britain are to follow starting with September of this year.

Although people performing these activities are unlikely to pay taxes, governments profit from them because these people use the money to purchase products, often luxury ones which result in an increased GDP.